


Mischief and Distraction

by wesleyfanfiction_archivist



Category: Angel: the Series, Firefly
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-08
Updated: 2005-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-12 08:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7094362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesleyfanfiction_archivist/pseuds/wesleyfanfiction_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crossover with Firefly - Wesley/Simon Tam.  Wesley has somehow broken Simon's perfect record.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mischief and Distraction

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [WesleyFanfiction.net](http://fanlore.org/wiki/WesleyFanFiction.Net). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [WesleyFanfiction.net collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesleyfanfiction/profile).

It was unfair to the point of being cruel.

And absurd to the point of being ridiculous.

Simon had never had such a problem before, and there was no logical reason to explain why he was having this problem now.

He’d treated a lot of attractive men and women on his examination table. Perhaps, once, he would have qualified that statement with an acknowledgement of his work on Osiris. Where the wealthiest, and most glamorous, of patients had chosen to come to him - his reputation and breeding making him the fashionable choice.

But beauty was not exclusive to the Core worlds. Simon had learned this early on into his stay aboard Serenity, even if certain members of her crew still believed him to be the snob he may have come off as being in the beginning. 

In fact, there was beauty - out in the black - that Simon had never witnessed on his homeworld.

“ _Because you’re on my crew. Why are we still having this conversation?_ “

The kind of beauty you couldn’t get in a cosmetic surgeon’s office, or buy couture and let rot on a shelf. Loyalty. Honesty. Nobility. Mercy.

Non-surface manners of beauty that had made him aware of _surface_ ones.

The angles and planes of the Captain’s face, and the slope of his back... The perfect curves of Kaylee’s shoulders and breasts and hips… The hard cut of Jayne’s jaw, and the way the muscles moved in his arms and thighs…

Simon _treated_ several attractive men and women on his examination table. Almost every day.

Though he wasn’t likely to admit it to anyone besides, perhaps, Kaylee. And River, who had already seen the way Simon’s eyes lingered on certain members of Serenity’s crew, whenever they were in visual range outside his Infirmary. 

Simon had never let his personal feelings interfere _inside_ his professional domain.

But Wesley…

Wesley had somehow broken Simon’s perfect record.

“Back again. And what manner of mischief did you and the others get yourselves into today?”

Simon barely looked up from the utensils he was sterilizing at the back of the Infirmary. He could see Wesley standing in the doorway through the corner of his eye. He’d almost come to know when the other man was present _without_ having seen him. Wesley could slip into a room with an unsettling stealth Simon had only ever attributed to his sister. Simon wasn’t sure if it was the many years in therapeutic cryostasis that had given Wes this ability - the cryochamber they’d released him from having been programmed to stimulate and develop a number of Wesley’s skills and processes. Or if Wesley had been so _sneaky_ before he’d been put in the chamber. Simon imagined _stealth_ was a handy skill to have had, on the Earth That Was. 

“Do you mean before the shooting started? Or after the explosion?”

Simon finished sterilizing another two scalpels, hearing Wesley take a seat on one of his tables. He finally turned.

“I would think a shooting and an explosion would be mischief enough,” he said.

Wesley smiled. A single quirk of one corner of his lips, and Simon damned himself several times over for _feeling_ it the way that he did. Wesley had been in Simon’s Infirmary no longer than a minute.

“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Wesley asked. There was an edge to his voice today - a sharpness to his accent that Simon had just noticed. An edge of pain? Simon tugged off the gloves he’d been wearing, and pulled on a rubber pair. Determined to set aside his wandering thoughts and do his job properly.

“So what was it that got you? The shooting or the explosion?”

Wesley chuckled. “I think both.”

Simon frowned. Yes, Wesley was in pain. And he sounded a bit woozy, as well. Head trauma? Or-

Suddenly concerned, Simon stepped up to Wesley’s side. Usually when a crew member was seriously hurt, one of the others accompanied them to the Infirmary. But it wouldn’t be the first time Wes had been badly injured and not said a thing until he’d made his own way to Simon. Simon should have been paying closer attention, and he might have seen-

“Well, you seem to be all in one piece. There aren’t even any singes.”

There was only a fine layer of moondust caked to Wesley jeans and boots and long coat. There was clay mud on his gloves and the front of his shirt and vest.

Simon tried to picture Wesley the way he might have looked before he’d been put into cryostasis. In the kind of clothes Wesley usually wore on the passenger deck. Casual clothes. More _quiet-night-with-a-book_ than _gun-slinging-out-in-the-black_. Perhaps he’d worn his dark hair short then. It reached just past his ears now, curling in places. Simon wondered what Wesley would look like clean-shaven, then wondered if he was trying to tease himself with his attraction. Or distract himself from it.

Either way, all these thoughts fled when Simon began helping Wesley out of his coat. Wesley’s arms were still in the sleeves past his elbows when Simon stilled, noticing the right side of Wesley’s shirt and vest. They were soaked through with blood, and torn. As was the back of Wesley’s coat - the exit point for the bullet that had injured him. 

“You’re shot.” The words sounded awkward on Simon’s lips, though they shouldn’t have. He’d treated many a gunshot wound before. And bad ones. But Wesley-

“It’s a flesh wound,” Wesley informed him, as if he were not a doctor and this was a revelation. Not in that smart-mouthed way Jayne spoke to Simon, or the Captain spoke to just about anyone when he was angry. In that soft-spoken way that said _everything_ was a revelation to a man who was drunk or doped. Or slowly going into shock from blood loss.

As if on cue, Wesley began to lean over. For a second, Simon thought he was leaning into him. Then Simon realized Wesley was going to topple over _onto_ him. Wes was passing out.

“ _No_.”

Simon caught Wesley by the shoulders and held him as Wesley became a dead weight. Then felt his blood run cold at his own choice of words. Wesley’s wound was, as he’d said, only a flesh wound, nowhere near mortal, but-

Simon struggled for several moments to get Wesley lying on the table. Calling someone else in to help would have meant letting Wesley go, so he fought until he’d done it himself. Wesley’s wound seemed to have already stopped bleeding, but Simon’s hands shook, all the same, as he quickly unbuttoned Wes’s shirt and vest, and peeled the clothing back from Wesley’s skin. 

It terrified him. Simon was a _doctor_. He did not _shake_. It was simply something he did not do. He took a quick, steadying breath and the shakes subsided beneath his own, determined scowl. Then he calmly left Wesley’s side to gather supplies and a wash basin for cleaning out the wound. 

 

Wesley came to while Simon was halfway through his stitches. 

Simon stopped and put a hand on the center of Wesley’s chest. To keep him from rising in his disorientation. In the interest of self-preservation, it wasn’t the wisest thing Simon had ever done. Wesley’s body temperature was slightly elevated, so Simon could feel the heat of him through his glove. He was very aware that he was touching Wesley’s skin for the first time since the job on Boros six months before. When Wesley, Jayne, and the Captain had all been injured in a bar fight. 

“I had to give you several stitches. Lie still and I’ll soon be done.”

He needn’t have worried that Wesley would move and injure himself, Simon realized. Wesley did nothing but lie on his back and open his eyes as consciousness returned. He fixed Simon with that damned blue-steel gaze. Dulled only slightly by the drugs Simon had pumped into his system, and the ones that had been there when Wes had stumbled to the Infirmary. 

Simon had called the Captain after he’d gotten a closer look at Wesley’s wound, and done a quick blood scan. Apparently Wesley hadn’t come to the Infirmary alone to be stubborn, and his wooziness hadn’t been caused by a head injury or blood loss or alcohol. The buyer Mal had found for the cargo they’d taken off a stranded transport ship two weeks back had tried to screw them over - as Mal’s buyers often liked to do. They’d doped the entire crew, and Simon had stiffened as Mal told him this. They could all have just as easily been poisoned as doped. But Jayne was snoring, seemingly sound, in the cargo bay, and the Captain and Zoe were still walking around. Everyone available was helping them stow the cargo they would now need to sell somewhere else, which would account for why the Infirmary had been so quiet thus far. 

“Stitches, Doctor?”

Wes was one of the few members of the crew who never called Simon “Doc”. Only _Doctor_ or, more often than not, Simon. Simon returned the favor by shying away from the Captain’s preference for calling Wes “Old Man”. A teasing reference to Wesley’s Earth That Was origins. Wesley glared whenever the Captain used it, though Simon thought Wes might secretly be flattered by the friendly moniker. 

“Yes. You were doing a job, remember? It went south. You were injured.”

Simon put the final stitch in Wesley’s side and snipped the polymer. Wesley held still, but hissed. And then chuckled. Simon would have said _giggled_ , and grinned, despite himself.

“And that would be a mixture of the pain killer I gave you.” Simon began putting up his materials. “And the gas Corrington’s men used on you all.”

Wesley muttered something about being doped, and then something Simon didn’t quite get. And finally, “’t bloody tickles.” He was still giggling.

Simon chuckled, too. “Yes, well. You did tell me the shooting and the explosion were only part of the mischief you and the others got up to. I should have listened.” 

Simon reached over Wesley for the basin sitting on the other side of the table. 

Wesley reached up and settled one hand on Simon’s waist. Simon froze, eyes dropping to Wesley’s face.

“Wh-”

Wesley’s eyes were on him. And he was smiling now. No quirk of the lips - an actual smile. It took Simon’s breath away. The laughter had faded.

“Mischief, Doctor? I like that word. It’s Old French, you know.”

Wesley’s casual touch burned through the fabric of Simon’s shirt. His hand moved around Simon’s side, and up, as near to the middle of Simon’s back as he could reach.

“Wesley-”

Wesley was pulling him closer, hand fisting in the back of Simon’s shirt. Simon leaned over slightly as the fabric tightened across his shoulders, stiffening. 

“ _Meschief_. Misfortune. I don’t agree.”

Simon raised a brow. He swallowed uncomfortably, but forced a gentle smile onto his face. Simon had once wondered what the other man would be like drunk, and realized he now had an answer. Wesley could hold his liquor better than anyone else on the ship. Though that was, perhaps, only because Zoe and the Captain never let themselves get drawn into the drinking contests Jayne liked to initiate. And because Jayne was both sadly inept at keeping an eye on his own drink, and under the dangerous misconception that Wesley was above cheating his way out of a week’s worth of septic vacuuming. 

“You don’t?” Simon assumed Wesley was talking nonsense. Simon had some experience with that, although he couldn’t ignore the subtle pang of disappointment that settled inside him. He had caught himself imagining, all too often, situations in which Wesley would pull him close and-

But none of those fantasies had involved narcotics. Or Simon’s having to grip the other edge of the examination table with gloved hands, so that Wesley didn’t inadvertently cause him to fall down on top of him. 

“Hmm. Anything that gets you to look at me, Simon, doesn’t strike me as being particularly misfortunate.”

Simon-

Had no idea what to do. Ready to ease out of Wesley’s grip, he went perfectly still. It would only take a token amount of effort on his part to step away. Wesley hadn’t lost as much blood as Simon had feared when he’d seen the condition of Wesley’s clothing, and Wesley had passed out on him. But he had lost a bit, and the drugs-

“Wesley,” Simon began before he’d decided what to say. The words were as much for him, his racing pulse, as Wes. “There are a number of side effects to having been exposed to the chemical agent Corrington’s men used to-”

“You never look at me anymore. You used to watch me all the time. In the beginning.” It was like Wesley hadn’t even heard him.

Simon felt his face, among - ashamedly - _other_ places, warm. 

“Wesley. I know you don’t mean to-”

“Why?” Wesley asked the question Simon, himself, had rather been afraid to ask.

Then he clarified. “Why can’t you look at me? Is it something I’ve done? I thought… Well. Perhaps I let myself think… Things take…time, you know. Although I suppose I‘ve had about as much of that as I‘m likely to get, to figure out how to do these things right…”

It was the most anyone so close to passing back out had ever said to Simon, sounding like they’d _actually_ meant it. Slurred as the words were, and soft.

Wesley was pulling him closer and-

There was no use in denying it. Simon was leaning in, Wesley’s hand little more than a suggestion against his back.

“Look,” Wesley whispered against Simon’s lips.

There was the briefest moment of contact.

Wesley’s eyes were already closed. His breathing shallowed, and then Simon knew he was asleep.

Simon couldn’t move for a short time.

Then he quickly collected some supplies, and hastened to check on Jayne, the Captain and Zoe in the cargo bay.

 

He rehearsed it in his head.

What he would say when Wesley woke up.

Simon walked slowly back to the Infirmary, rehearsing. It didn’t help. 

A lifetime ago, at MedAcad, Simon would rehearse practice scenarios in his head whenever a “surprise” observation was scheduled. The whole point of the practice, of course, was to not be rehearsed, and to use his medical knowledge successfully, anyway. But to call the observations unplanned was an outright lie. The instructing surgeons always favored seeing certain procedures performed, and as long as he had familiarized himself with those, Simon had felt confident walking into the students’ surgical bay. 

Not that his rehearsals had ever really helped. The instructors had always sprung some _true_ surprise on Simon by the end of the observation session. That’s where his bolstered confidence had come in handy. Simon would admit that in medicine, as with other aspects of his life, brilliance and training had only gotten him so far. Determination and sheer, dumb luck had taken him the rest of the way.

Simon couldn’t claim much of the latter, as he walked into the Infirmary and saw Wesley already sitting up on the examination table. He turned and looked at Simon, and Simon’s thoughts seemed to fly right out of his head.

“I-”

Wesley simply stared at him for a moment. And then straightened, an expression of resolution on his face that made Simon’s stomach sink.

“I should apologize, Doctor,” Wesley said. 

Simon looked away. He had an idea of what Wesley was going to say, and suddenly found himself needing - very much - to not hear Wesley say it. Despite the fact that Simon had been planning on saying something very similar himself.

“Don’t,” he replied, crossing the Infirmary to retrieve a jar from the back counter. Then felt Wesley’s eyes on him and struggled to return the gaze, hurriedly adding, “I mean… An apology isn’t necessary. You were under the influence of-”

“A combination of drugs that would have impaired my judgment, but not altered it.” Wesley held up Simon’s tablet. The screen was open to Simon’s report on his treatment. For his own purposes as ship’s doctor, Simon had begun keeping medical records on Serenity’s crew. It was yet another sign of how shaken Simon had become. He would normally never have left his tablet lying around. Jayne was terribly paranoid about what Simon wrote about him in his reports - never settling for Simon’s honest assurances that he kept his medical reports entirely objective, and that they could not be used against Jayne even if he didn’t. If he got a hold of Simon’s tablet, there was no telling- Then there was the time River had gotten _her_ hands on it and re-categorized all of Simon’s entries… 

Simon could only look at Wesley at that. Despite himself, his lips formed a wry smile. 

“So… You’ve taken up studying the side-effects of nueroleptic medicines?”

Wesley seemed to relax a bit. His expression softened. “I’m a fast learner.”

Simon nodded. Simon had noticed. It was one of the things he admired most about Wesley. Wesley had entered cryo-stasis in the _twenty-first century_. His was the sort of story Simon read about in science fiction novels and fantasies. That anyone could survive such an ordeal, much less the culture shock that came after- And not only _survive_ , but make a new life for himself…as Wesley had done aboard Serenity….

“Well.” Simon forced himself not to look away. “Regardless. If anyone should be apologizing, it should be me.” Emotion threatened to rise in his throat, but Simon swallowed it down. “I was…distracted when you came into the Infirmary. I should have checked you over for injuries right away, rather than waiting til you were nearly passed out to do my job.”

“I’ve nothing to complain about, Doctor.” Wesley was standing. It was becoming almost expected now, the rapid increase in pace of Simon’s pulse and the slight hitch he had to consciously smooth out of his breathing. Wesley had taken a few steps closer. “Doesn’t look like I’ll even have much of a scar.”

He wouldn’t, at that. Though Simon could have ensured that he didn’t have one at all by using the proper grafting to supplement the suture. The Captain never approved of the treatment for minor injuries. He felt it was a waste of time and medical supplies. And while Simon would have once disagreed - it had seemed barbaric to him, the thought of allowing scar tissue to form unnecessarily - his opinion on the subject seemed to have changed. Jayne, for one, treated each new scar he accumulated like a badge of honor, or a prized memento. Wesley had been unconcerned after Boros, when Simon had mentioned the grafting to him. Which made sense, as scarring was the unavoidable result of a serious injury in Wesley’s day. 

The thought directed Simon’s eyes to the scars Wesley had worn when he’d come out of cryostasis. Ruining his previous efforts to pretend that Wesley wasn’t still shirtless, standing there in the Infirmary. And drawing his eyes to the parts of Wesley’s body that sported the scars Simon could see. The stretch of Wesley’s throat, half-ringed by a thin, red scar; the flat planes of Wesley’s stomach… His skin was smooth everywhere but at his sides. Wesley had a scar from a gunshot wound on one side of his lower abdomen; and an impossible knife wound on the other side. There were a few older, shallower scars peppered over Wesley’s pectoral muscles…

Simon forced his eyes up and away.

Wesley had gotten closer. There was no longer that grim resolve Simon had seen earlier in Wesley’s eyes. There were questions instead. And the hint of self-forming answers of the kind that made Simon’s body temperature increase.

“Which makes me wonder, Doctor, just how distracted you could have been when you treated me.” Wesley’s eyes went, amused, to the utensils still sitting out on the counter where Simon had been sterilizing them that evening. “Unless that takes a lot more concentration than I’d have given it credit for.”

“I-”

Simon didn’t know quite what to say.

Or did. And was nervous about saying it. But he conjured up the words from somewhere. Because it was ridiculous that years of training, and a childhood of proper breeding, seemingly meant nothing when it came to Simon’s controlling his own sense of longing whenever Wesley was in a room with him.

But it was worse that, at last, months of subtle glances and fleeting touches seemed to be leading somewhere… And Simon had just been standing there in silent surprise.

“You distract me,” he blurted out, before he could think better. Or lose his thought processes altogether. “I can’t seem to think when I look at you.”

“Hmm. Luckily I don’t seem to have that problem.”

Before Simon could worry what he meant by that, Wesley was raising a hand. He wrapped his fingers around the nape of Simon’s neck and drew their faces closer together.

“I can’t seem to stop thinking when I’m around you,” Wesley whispered against Simon’s lips. 

He brought their mouths together and shared with Simon some of his thoughts.

 

[ end. ]


End file.
